Books & Reviews

Recently I was asked about my usage of the term “findability”. Well, it is not a typo, I promise. Findability refers to making content usable and accessible by people. Although it can be related to search engine optimization, that is primarily because search robots operate like screen readers. Findability differs because it focuses not on [...]

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When I first mentioned buying The Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman, I knew it was a well-respected classic for those in user experience design. Amber – a friend who designs Technical Poet – pointed out she did not enjoy it, in fact, because the examples related to engineering physical products such as tables, [...]

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If you follow me on Twitter you will have recently seen me having a virtual orgasm about Safari Books Online, which is a huge online reference library by O’Reilly. My account there allows me access to up to 10 books per month from the shelves, and let me tell you, by day two I’ve already [...]

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I’m really enjoying Aarron Walter’s book, Building Findable Websites. Today I’ve noticed he posted a findability cheat sheet on his website which is not only an excellent quick checklist for managing websites but also gives you a good idea of the topics covered thoroughly in his book.
A little more digging revealed that Mr. Walter also [...]

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This is the list of my most loved interface and web design books to date, as re-posted from a thread at the Web Designer Forum.
In terms of publishers of web design/development books I adore Sitepoint, Friends of Ed, New Riders, and O’Reilly. If I want to learn a new language, I grab an O’Reilly or [...]

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Designing Web Navigation is subtitled “Optimizing the User Experience”, and therefore drew my attention immediately. Written by James Kalbach, and published by O’Reilly, this book is also elegeantly designed and in full-colour with examples throughout. Once again the book itself conveys it’s own message – that user experience is holistic and that products must not [...]

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Designing Interfaces, by Jennifer Tidwell, is appropriately subtitled “Patterns for Effective Interaction Design”. This book is an excellent introduction for the beginning designer as well as a wonderful reference. The book itself is elegeantly designed and beautiful to behold, with carefully chosen colours and typography, well-written and enjoyable copy, and lovely full-colour screenshots and examples.
In [...]

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I found Don’t Make Me Think covered materials I was already aware of. Clearly it is a quick, concise book for those who aren’t already familiar with good design, or who are interested in it as stakeholders rather than designers. I’m sure it would’ve been more useful if I had read it at the beginning [...]

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I recently considered adding a SitePoint updates feed for about five minutes, until I regained sanity. After all, a quick glance at my bookshelf for the tell-tale orange and blue logo only confirms one thing – I should just have my paychecks automatically deposited in SitePoint’s account. First it was The Principles of Beautiful Web [...]

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